Saturday, July 14, 2007

Well, that's a wrap.Kim Possible is officially finished.I honestly thought I'd be a little more emotional about the last day, but there was a full schedule and there wasn't much time to stop and wax nostalgic. We started the day with a 11:00 playback of the last episode for Mark, Bob, Clay and myself to give the final sign-off. There were no jokes and no wisecracks as we were just totally involved in the episode and we very pleased with the results. The final episode was a very tough road. There was extensive re-writing all the way through the process including the final days of animatic. We had, at least, three alternate endings that were fully storyboarded and recorded. In fact, the 'big' moment at the end was conceived at the last minute.

(Panels from an alternate ending)

As the final frames played, I called out "Well, that's it" and we had a round of applause for the core crew of KP bigwigs. Mark, Bob and I posed for one last photo and they ran off to their Nickelodeon digs.

The day before we had arranged for a select group of KP crew to come down to the studio and see the final episodes. They came from various studios to be there and they included Nick Filippi, Andy Ice, Louie Del Carmen, Anna Boyadjian and Wade Wisinski. It was great to see everyone again and everybody really liked the finale. After that, I packed up my last box and headed off to my final meeting at another building regarding a Kim Possible project that is being worked on (and has been worked on for a while). I can not speak about it, but I think some of you clever guys will figure it out. And in that 96 degree parking lot ,at some building I've never been to before, closed the final chapter in the longest running series I had ever worked on.

This has been a fantastic experience and I'm very proud of the work we've done and I want to thank everyone that ever had a hand in any Kim Possible episode. Very special thanks go to the two people I've had the longest working relationship in my career- Mr. Mark McCorkle and Mr. Robert Schooley. I'll see you guys at the new office.

But the biggest thank you goes to you. I've never gotten to know a fan base as special as the KP fan base. I've met some remarkable people and had the pleasure of interacting with the audience in a way I've never done before. You guys are the best and when things got tough, it's knowing that the KP fans were out there is what gave us the energy to pull through. In the most sincere way possible- thanks.

(last panel from an alternate ending- All images owned by Disney)

'Soundtrack Of My Life' for the week of 7/12-

Crowded House- Time On Earth. I can't stop listening to this album. 'Sometimes you have to turn the wrong way around'

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

We finished the mix of the final episode of Kim Possible at Advantage Audio today. We started around 2:00 and ended around 5:45, which is actually one of our longest mixes ever. When you see the show, you'll understand why.

The sound design is massive. There was difficulty in being able to hear specific sounds because the mix is so dense.

(my notes from the mix)

Fil and Melissa braved the audio storm and made a perfect mix (as always). There was even a delicious assortment of food including gourmet cupcakes, which was a hot topic of conversation.

To our pleasant suprise, they toasted us with a terrific bottle of champagne as we said farewell to our friends at Advantage Audio.

(checking our RS.net)

The final mixed sound- 'bonk'.I'm serious.

I guess this is also the time to make the official announcement of what the title is. We were temporarily calling it 'Untitled' or 'Graduation'. We always figured we would come up with something better, but before we knew it, paperwork went through and it became officially- 'Graduation'. We were actually going to call it 'Graduation Invasion'.However, as Mark pointed out earlier today, 'Graduation' works because it's not just graduation from school, it's also......(Spoiler).

So there is 2 days left at the studio and the last thing to do is playback the episode and give the final approval. I'll blog the last part on Friday.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

It's been a busy week here in KP land.On Tuesday we mixed Part One of the finale at Advantage Audio in Burbank, Ca.A 'mix' is when you combine the music, sound effects, dialog and anything else on an audio track and mix the levels. We usually preview the sound effects on the previous day, as always created by the king of squeak toy sounds- Paca Thomas. So, with our fantastic mixers- Fil Brown and Melissa Gentry-Ellis, we spent the next afternoon getting the levels just right for either your big stereo set up or little tiny tv speakers.

(Left to right- Melissa Gentry-Ellis, Paca Thomas and Fil Brown)

Traditionally, Mark, Bob and I gain a bit of weight due to the wonderful spread of snacks and food put out before us. We'll miss Advantage, but our pants will be grateful.

On Wednesday, we had a play-back of the episode at the studio for the final OK, before it is sent away around the world to be ready for airing. Recently we had a play-back for an episode that everyone was REALLY tired of seeing, so we created our own off-color running commentary track as the show played. If they ever put together DVD's for KP and ask us to do commentaries, I guarantee you they will be pretty funny but I'd imagine we'd have to watch our language.

On Thursday we had the final recording session with most of our KP stars. The stage was set at L.A. Studios in Universal City, Ca in Studio F. as we recorded with Kerri Kenney, George Takei, Kevin M. Richardson, Nicole Sullivan, Will Friedle and a slightly teary Christy Carlson Romano. Jokes were made, there was hugs all around and Nicole deftly recorded new Shego dialog that was originally recorded by your humble blogger as we bid farewell to our wonderful cast.

Friday, June 22, 2007

This week we 'locked' the final episode of KP. When we 'lock' something it means we cannot make any changes to the length of the show such as adding or removing any scenes. We still have plenty of work left to do on the episode including re-animating some characters within scenes, but the scenes must remain the same length. The 'locked' DVD is then given to us to call any ADR (Dialog recorded to the picture) and the composer, Adam Berry, for music.The episode is looking better and better each day as our digital effects department works their magic and fixes and adds special effects and corrects mistakes.On Thursday, Joe and I did our final 'edit' ever on KP. It was assembling a 'previously on...' sequence for when the the two parter is shown as separate episodes. I think Joe was joking that I should have some emotional outpouring (which except for frequent rants, is totally not like me) but it didn't matter since I was far too exhausted from carting my boxes.

(Heavier than they look!)

This entire week I've been packing up my boxes for moving and I've been amazed at some of the stuff I've been finding including something special. One of my favorite items is the packet of fan mail I've collected over the years. I've never received fan mail on any other show I've ever worked on, so thanks to everyone who sent some in. There's even some hate mail! Thanks for that too, cause I got a lot of laughs out of it.One of the angry letters wrote that my work was too reminiscent to Joss Whedon.

You could not give me a better compliment.

Except if you gave me cash. Cash is good.

(BEFORE)

(AFTER)

'Soundtrack Of My Life' for the week of 6/18-Amy Winehouse- Back To Black. Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of nasty comments because of this, but the album is REALLY good. Quite often I wonder what 'f*****y' is this, too.

Monday, June 18, 2007

There's been a lot of talk about cut sequences, alternate endings and other bits of stuff that don't seem to end up in the show so I thought I'd clarify a bit. When I started directing at the beginning of season 2, I created (with Pieter Kaufman) the animatic for 'The Ron Factor'. An animatic is a video version of the storyboards matched with the recorded dialog to work out the timing and pace of the show. It was an interesting experience because I kept referring back to the work that Chris Bailey had done on season one, while trying to maintain my own personal identity. Once completed, it was good, but it could have been better. Mark and Bob described the 'overlapping dialog' theory was employed on the first season to get that cinematic feel. I went back in and re-cut the show to that feel and it was better but not great. After screening it to the executives, they also felt something was not quite hitting. It was mentioned that maybe the pace was off, but it was good enough to send into production. On the second episode 'Naked Genius' I made a concentrated effort to find my identity within the KP world and get comfortable. On the advice from executives, I sped up the show. I mean, REALLY, sped it up. We pulled out pauses and breaths within the dialog and everything moved at a breakneck speed. It clicked and everyone liked it. This was the way to tell one of my episodes from any one else's and I feel like Pieter and I set the pace and feel for the rest of the series. However, there were repercussions. The scripts were written to a particular length and speeding everything up made the show a whole lot shorter. We found that we had to write and record inserts during the animatic stage. This was not an ideal situation. Therefore you will not find many scenes cut from the animatics of seasons 2 and 3 since we used as much material as we could. During the start of Season 4, Mark and Bob wanted to accomodate the new timing by writing longer scripts. It was a good idea that had unexpected results. We started to find we had shows were overlength. WAY overlength. We had to start cutting out whole sequences, characters and situations and then re-writing and re-boarding to make the new edits work. We ended up with a tremendous amount of footage cut from Season 4. Traditionally, we would provide a few extra minutes to be animated that we could cut during the final picture editing. However, because of the end credit 'tag' (the little bit of animation over the end credits) we didn't ship those extra few minutes. There was very little 'actual' animation cut from Season 4, but a ton of storyboards with recorded dialog from our cast that will never see the light of day. Here's a list of just a few of the larger cuts we've made this season-THE BIG JOB- One of Ron's new jobs involved him dressed up in a bunny suit holding a large arrow sign. His antics cause a vehicle pile-up.CAR ALARM- A sequence with Motor Ed serenading Shego in 'Say Anything' style trying to convince her to work with him.FASHION VICTIM- A flashback to the day Ron cleaned his roomMENTOR OF OUR DISCONTENT- A lot cut from this one including a long sequence involving Ron and Artie at J.P. Bearymores, a fight sequence with Kim, Ron, Drakken and Frugal in the High Tech Science building as they steal the URC and Drakken and Frugal in Drakken's Lair Cafeteria.STOP TEAM GO- Barkin fighting Team Go.Just for comparison- in the picture we have the stack of deleted storyboards for Season 4 next to a standard episode.

Friday, June 15, 2007

'Final Picture Editing' or 'Joe Will Fix That'

I don't know when it started, but we have a nickname for the computer counter that we use to track scene numbers. I have no idea what it's really called, but one day in complete frustration of trying to ask for 'that scene counter thing', I simply called it 'puff-puff'. It has remained 'puff-puff' ever since. Even In serious retake meetings, Clay Renfroe (stone faced with a business attitude) would ask for 'puff-puff'. It is now universally understood what 'puff-puff' is and I don't think I'll ever learn the real name.Why would I want to?

Final picture editing is the one of the last steps in bringing KP to cable boxes and dishes around the world. We receive the raw animation (without sound effects and music) from our overseas animation studio and we cut, alter, re-time, flop, re-sequence to our satisfaction. Sometimes we will try to get closer to the timing we had previously established in the animatic phase. Sometimes the raw animation will bring a new beating heart and we will have to follow a new road it has presented before us.Joe Molinari is a very important man behind the scenes at KP. He has edited final picture for me for a long time. He understands the pace and feel of KP and always brings fresh insight to whatever crosses his Avid. No matter what the schedule is like, I want Joe to do a first pass on raw episodes. There's no need to discuss the episode upfront, In fact, I prefer it if he knows nothing about what he's about to work on. It provides a fresh, first time perspective and he can base his opinions based on first impressions, instead of an idea that I've lived with for months. I know that shallow praise is handed out too often in Hollywood, but Joe is the real deal. He understands film and respects the vision of what the director is trying to achieve and makes it better.

When we received the raw footage from Part One of the finale it was pretty straight forward. Starburst did a very good job of following the boards and enhancing the acting.Part One is mostly all 'set-up' and it all seemed to work from the beginning, but it still provided a challenge. How do you establish the pace and feel of a 2 parter without having the second part? We were able to finesse the timing on STD and SIT because we had all the parts at the same time. This time around we had to rely on what we had established in the animatic and keep our fingers crossed for the best.

Part Two was another situation entirely. While Part One has an intricate set-up with well written dialog and groundwork, Part Two is a Michael Bay style apocalypse. It is massive and loud with CG characters running around blowing stuff up. It is requiring a strong shared vision to plow forward because there was a lot of 'elements', but little flow. Joe did a terrific job of making sense of all this chaos, but ultimately it was one of the longest sessions we have ever had. However, after a 2 day session, I feel we wrangled this bear of a show to the ground. The show isn't 'locked' yet as it is being reviewed by executives, but we will lock the final episode on KP on Monday. After that, it's all about the ADR, retakes, sound effects, music and sleep.

'Soundtrack Of My Life' for the week of 6/11-Crowded House- Time On Earth. People are like suns, indeed.

So The Finale

This is the 'fans-only' blog documenting the final days of production of the 'Kim Possible' TV series. It was created specifically for the fans whose hard work and effort made the 4th and final season possible. (No pun intended)

So The Finale

This is the 'fans-only' blog documenting the final days of production of the 'Kim Possible' TV series. It was created specifically for the fans whose hard work and effort made the 4th and final season possible. (No pun intended)